


In Peace

by whichstiel



Series: Season 13 Codas [20]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Bunker, Episode: s13e22 Exodus, First Kiss, Fluff, M/M, episode coda, spn 13x22
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-12
Updated: 2018-05-12
Packaged: 2019-05-05 18:24:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14624442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whichstiel/pseuds/whichstiel
Summary: Dean and Cas have feelings for each other. There may be some kissing.





	In Peace

The bunker is cold at the best of times. Whatever magical machinery keeps the air flowing barely manages to heat it much above the ambient temperature of the surrounding ground. Dean has become accustomed to it. He understands the need for layers, for long pants and soft shirts even under the comfort of his own bedspread. So it’s the contrast of temperatures that wakes him first. His hip all the way down to one ankle is cold and slightly uncomfortable from too much time exposed. His shoulder, however. His chest, his other hip, the leg he has twined under another, his cheek pillowed on a broad chest. Those parts of him feel as warm as though he lay along the sun-warmed hood of the Impala in the middle of a still summer day.

“Mmph,” he manages before sliding his cold leg across Castiel, threading his ankle between warm calves.

A hand Dean wasn’t aware of tightens its grip and Castiel sounds almost breathless when he says, “Good morning, Dean.”

“Cas.” Dean contemplates opening his eyes for a moment before concluding that it’s still too early, whatever time it actually may be. He flexes his ankles and stretches the arm he has slung across Castiel, then relaxes them and folds himself further into their embrace. “Time is it?”

Dean doesn’t need to see Castiel to know he’s squinting up at the ceiling. “Nearly 5:30 in the morning.”

“Hmmph.”

“You have been asleep for,” Castiel adds thoughtfully, “five hours.”

Dean exhales and feels Castiel shiver beneath his lips. “Not bad.”

“No,” Castiel agrees quietly. “Not bad.”

The room is quiet save for the whirring of the machineries that breath life into the bunker, the static hiss of ancient bespelled bulbs in the hallway. Dean can’t hear anything coming from the rest of the bunker. Their guests might be asleep still, or they could be awake and so battle tested that they managed to creep past even Dean Winchester. He should get up and start coffee for 30 people, or organize the food and other supplies he and Castiel had bought in town yesterday.

Or he could stay here in the quiet of Castiel’s embrace for a little while longer and try to wrap his head around how they’d arrived in each others’ arms.

Dean lets himself relax further and, with a small kiss pressed against Castiel, he unpacks the past day.

 

**Twelve Hours Earlier**

“Fuck.” Dean ran his palm through his hair, massaging the nape of his neck, the other hand on the wheel. His body screamed with exhaustion.

After Bobby’s army had tumbled their way through the rift, they’d all gathered around the war room table to regroup. Sam had filled them in on the shorthand version of their world. Monsters existed but the apocalypse had been averted. There were hunter legacies, and secret bunkers of lore like the one the Winchesters and Castiel now called home. The resistance fighters had been astonished at the safe reality of it, overjoyed, relieved, and then…hungry. Dean had volunteered to make a supply run, snagging Castiel’s sleeve on his way out to the garage.

“No offense,” he’d said to Castiel’s disgruntled exclamation, “but you were about to stare a hole right through Jack.”

“He spent too long with Lucifer,” Castiel told him tightly. “He’s clearly troubled by something. Don’t you think I should—”

“Cas, the kid’ll be fine. We got him back safe and sound and Lucifer’s a whole universe away. Give him a chance to rest.” Dean slapped Castiel’s shoulder. “He’ll bounce back. I, on the other hand, need to buy beer and pizza for an actual small army.” He grinned. “And you get to help me carry it all.” Dean had herded Castiel to the Impala and steered them into cloud-filtered afternoon sunshine. He’d felt free for most of the drive to town but now, sitting at a red light in the buzz of town traffic, exhaustion caught up to him.

“Fuck,” he said again. “I could use about a day of sleep,” Dean glanced at Castiel and dropped his hand back to the wheel.

Castiel sat in the passenger seat, palms lightly curved around his knees. He stared out of the window and if it weren’t for the tight band of muscle jumping in his jaw, Dean would have assumed he was riveted by the Biggersons squatting on the corner.

Dean rolled his eyes and drove through the light when it turned green. He steered them to a parking space in the back of the Al’s Groceries lot and turned off the car. “Okay,” he said, turning to prop one knee on the seat. “Talk to me.” Castiel glanced at him, forehead creased in question and Dean turned a stern eye on him. “I don’t wanna hear everything’s fine, ‘cause I know that ain’t true. Why don’t you tell me what’s on your mind?”

Castiel huffed a small breath and cast his eyes upward towards the roof of the car. “It’s not—” His mouth twisted to the side. “I find I’m still preoccupied with Jack.”

Dean frowned, then reached around the steering wheel and pulled the keys from the ignition. Castiel gave a short nod, as though they’d exchanged some unspoken direction, and reached for the door handle. “Cas,” Dean said quietly. “What’s really going on?”

Castiel sighed and dropped his chin, his fingers curled around the handle of his door. “It has been an eventful few days. I find I’m still…processing it all.”

Dean ached to wrap his fingers around Castiel’s jaw and tug his chin around. Maybe encourage Castiel to meet his eye. He’d known him long enough to see when he was evading something.

Outside a drizzle had begun to fall, painting the Impala’s windows with a fine polka-dot mist. It turned the world around them gray like a soft unreal fog shrouded the world. “You still thinking about Jack?” Dean asked as rain drummed weakly on the metal roof.

Castiel lifted and dropped one shoulder. This time Dean gave in to his instincts and reached out a hand, curling his fingers around to brush along Castiel’s collar before withdrawing it again. Castiel turned to him, his eyes full and strangely mournful. “There’s something I didn’t tell you.”

Dean’s stomach twisted at that. Unspoken, hidden truths got somebody killed half the time, and meant a long, hard fight almost every other time. He forced himself to keep his voice quiet and even when he said, “I’m listening.”

Castiel sucked in a breath and let it out slowly. He flicked his eyes to Dean once, then settled them on the dashboard. “I met myself over there.” He said it calmly as though relaying the state of the weather. But Dean could tell by the way he held himself absolutely still, not even breathing, that he was rattled to his core. Castiel seemed to take Dean’s silence as encouragement because he continued, “He was with the angels. Helping them with their mission.”

“Oh.” For a beat, Dean scrambled for the right words. He replied, “Well, you are an angel. Makes sense you’d be with Heaven, right? Still, guess it was probably hard to recognize yourself.”

“No. I recognized myself perfectly. He was a soldier, just like me.” His eyes dropped to Dean’s knee, still propped across the seat. “But with less interaction with humans, I suspect. I’ve tried to change because of those experiences." He shook his head. "I suppose I’ve been contemplating when one can declare that one has truly changed. Perhaps what most people call change is just the perception of the fight, however fruitless.”

Dean tapped one finger against the seat of the Impala. “So you’re freaked out that he was working with the angels? Cas, you are an angel. That’s not too surprising. And also, you _have_ changed. Hell, when I met you I thought you were the biggest dick on the planet but now—” He tried for a grin but dropped it when he noticed a twinge, almost like a wince. “On that world everyone was a soldier. Even Charlie,” he said, feeling the weight of it press against him like a dropped barbell. “Here she was…not the same. The Charlie we have now? She’s her, but she’s not. That’s the same for you, man. You were you, but also not.”

Castiel pursed his lips. “That’s terrible logic.”

Dean laughed. “Well, that’s never been my strength.” He stretched out a hand to clap Castiel on the shoulder again, then changed his mind mid-movement and ended up resting his palm near the curve of Castiel’s neck. Castiel turned to him, eyes deep and sorrowful, lines wearing his expression into something impossibly young and lost. “You’ll be fine. You just gotta have time to wrap your head around it. Come on. Let’s go in.”

Castiel followed him dutifully into the store, pushing the deep cart through the aisles while Dean muttered meal plans and ingredient lists. He still had a pinched look to him as though he were still on another planet. Finally, over the frozen meat he said, “I killed him. The other Castiel.”

Dean closed his eyes for a moment then carefully set down the packet of ground beef he’d been considering. “It wasn’t you, Cas.”

“It was,” Castiel said earnestly, mirroring Dean’s hushed tones over the frozen display case. “We’re both soldiers. Machines programmed to Heaven’s will. I looked at him and, while some superficial details may have changed, he was fundamentally me. A broken thing on a mission.”

“Fuck, Cas.” Dean curled his fingers into fists to keep himself from reaching out, grabbing hold of Castiel’s coat, and giving him a good shake to startle that sad placidity right out of him. “You’re not broken. Maybe the other you was but you’re—” He broke off to glare at an elderly woman wandering towards the sausages with a basket over her arm. She took one look at his expression and veered off towards the baking aisle instead. Dean shook his head. “Look, this isn’t over.” He jabbed a finger towards Castiel. “Groceries first.”

Castiel sighed and rolled his eyes like a champion. He reached around Dean and grabbed the package of meat Dean had been contemplating. “It’s fine,” he said, dropping the meat into the cart. "I'm fine."

 _It’s fine,_ Dean mouthed to his back, his heart still thumping madly against his chest. It was clearly anything but fine. He steered Castiel around the store like a general after that, filling their cart with breakfast foods and sandwich fixings. Pasta and canned meals. He bought a box of cereal with a rainbow patterned unicorn on it, shoving it down into the side of the cart behind massive bags of green beans. He’d see that Charlie got some of it. A little taste of some kind of home, at least.

Once the groceries were paid for, bagged, and dragged out to the car, Dean called Luigi’s and ordered a dozen pizzas. When he hung up the phone he slapped it face down onto the dash and leaned back in his seat, turning his head to Castiel. “There,” he said. “We got twenty minutes. Let’s talk.” When Castiel said nothing, Dean said, “You’re not broken.” That got his attention. Castiel stilled like he’d just been whipped so Dean said it again, slower and more deliberately this time. “You’re not broken, Cas. How could you think that?”

Castiel leaned back in his seat, pressing himself into the corner by his door like he was preparing a safe ground for battle. He met Dean’s eye again and held it this time. “If a cracked sword is used as a plow, is it a plow or a sword?”

Dean dropped his chin and raised one eyebrow. “Seriously? Metaphor? Cas…”

“It’s neither. That doesn’t mean it isn’t useful - either for battle or life. But living halfway… The Castiel I killed— I could see the cracks as though with a magnifier. He was strong. Full of Heaven’s power. But destroyed all the same. I could trace the damage in him through his ruined eye and I…”

Dean found himself sliding closer. Castiel spoke quietly, almost to himself like the world around them didn’t exist. “Cas,” Dean tried again. “You’re not damaged.” He gently palmed his shoulder. “You’re changed but, hell, we all are. That’s life. You go around pretending you’re not. But the guy you see in the mirror? That changes all the damn time. Hell, I do it just about every week. That’s the same for you, angel or not. And that other Cas? Killing him? You did what you had to do. Don’t tear yourself up over it.”

Castiel twisted his mouth into a frown. “I’m not. I don’t regret killing him.” He inhaled deeply and turned away again. “If anything, I’m glad. Now… Now he’ll have peace.”

Inside Dean’s chest a darkness churned as he fumbled for a reply. The thought of Castiel destroying any version of himself turned him cold. “I’m glad we made it out of there alive,” he finally said. “But you gotta know, I couldn’t have done what you did. I couldn’t have killed you.” For a moment flashes of memory threatened to overwhelm him. A stifling house. Still curtains. A body laid out on the table.

Castiel still wouldn’t look at him and fear turned Dean stiff and impulsive. “When you died,” he said watching Castiel twitch in surprise, “It was the hardest damn time of my life.”

“Dean.” Castiel flicked his gaze at Dean and held, seemingly arrested by something he saw there.

“Losing you, any version of you. It’s gotta be the worst thing to happen to any universe. How you don’t see that…?” Dean shook his head. “You call yourself a soldier. You fight for us. With us. But you are more, Cas. So much more.” Castiel sighed, almost wistfully, and Dean said, “You change every damn day and it’s the best fucking thing I’ve ever seen. You got no idea how much you—” Slowly, Dean raised the crook of his index finger and ran it lightly against Castiel’s stubbled jaw. Castiel jerked back a little and then after a beat, tilted his head slightly to lean into the caress.

They sat there for a long time in the silence of the car, traffic humming unseen around them. Then, Dean’s phone chirped and he dropped his hand, turned on the car, and drove them to pick up pizzas.

Back at the bunker they were treated like heroes returned from a long war. The weary fighters tore into the pizza and chips like they hadn’t seen junk food in years. Maybe they hadn’t. Dean jammed food into the underutilized hulk of a refrigerator and then returned to the library. He should eat. Part of him screamed for it. But his eyes immediately flew to Castiel, who sat with Rowena holding a quiet conversation as though he hadn’t just intimated to Dean that he was contemplating the merits of existence.

Terror skittered in Dean and he walked up to Castiel and said abruptly, without prompting, “You coming?” Castiel frowned up at him but nodded as though they were on the same page. Dean led him down the hallway to his room and paused outside the door. “Sam’s giving away your room so you’re with me tonight.”

Now Castiel looked confused. “I don’t need a room, Dean. I don’t—”

“You’re bunking with me,” Dean said again, pushing open his door. “You think all the people sleeping in the library want you staring at them all night?”

Castiel nodded. “I suppose they would be wary. It can’t be easy to have an angel in their midst.”

“Shit. Cas, that’s not what I meant.” Dean pulled Castiel through the doorway and closed it behind them. He turned to find Castiel standing carefully in the middle of his floor. He was looking around Dean’s room with a furrowed brow.

“I could stay in the kitchen,” he said.

Dean spread his fingers out. “No,” he said a little sharply. Then, more gently, “No. Stay with me. There’s something I gotta… There’s something I want to say.”

“Okay.”

“Okay. Here,” Dean steered him towards his bed until Castiel sat gingerly on the edge of his mattress. Dean stared at him for a long time, wetting his lips with his tongue. His heart battered itself against the walls of his chest. Finally, Dean took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I get wanting peace. Or thinking you deserve one thing or another. But you gotta know. You here? With me? That’s my peace.” Castiel’s face transformed from irritable puzzlement to surprise, then confusion. Dean sighed and internally cursed his inability to speak his mind. “I don’t care what you’ve done. What other versions of you have done. I need you here.” To emphasize his point, he laid his palm across Castiel’s chest.

After a very long pause, Castiel raised his own hand to cover Dean’s. “I need you too,” he finally said.

“Good,” Dean said, a little breathless with his hand sandwiched by Castiel. He stared into his eyes and searched for words to anchor him there. And then he gave up on words. Leaning forward slowly to give Castiel time to pull back, Dean leaned in towards him. Carefully, softly, he pressed his lips to Castiel.

Dean had half expected Castiel to pull away, to express shock or even dismay. Instead, Castiel melted into him with a soft moan. They sat there in the calm pool of his bedroom, the din of the party a distant distraction, kissing quietly with hands clasped between them.

 

**The Next Morning**

There was something about the bunker that amounted to an almost Pavlovian urge to stop, to rest. Dean lay in Castiel’s arms, or Castiel lay in his, and Dean didn’t bother to justify the joy he felt. “Wish I could stay like this all day.” His stomach growled and he frowned. Beneath him, Castiel laughed.

“You should eat.”

“You should make me coffee,” Dean said, opening his eyes at last and raising his head. Castiel looked younger this morning, as though a heavy fog had lifted. He smiled and Dean returned it, then pushed himself up to kiss him again. “In bed,” he amended. “You should bring me coffee in bed.”

Castiel laughed again and smoothed his warm hand down the long dip of Dean’s back. Castiel left it familiarly settled in the small of his back, fingers splayed low. “I could do that,” he said finally. “What about everyone else?”

“They’re all adults,” Dean said, brows raised. “They can take care of themselves for one morning.” He grinned. “Sam’ll take care of it.”

“I’m sure he will.” Castiel’s eyes dropped to Dean’s lips and his tongue darted out to wet his own. His voice was tighter as he said, “we should get to it.”

“We should get to something,” Dean agreed. He brought his hand up to trace the line of Castiel’s jaw, the snail of his ear. He bent to kiss him again in the peaceful stillness of their room.

**Author's Note:**

> fluff fluff fluff is gooooood for the soul
> 
> Thanks for reading! I'm on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/whichstiel) and [Tumblr](http://whichstiel.tumblr.com/) @ whichstiel. You may also like the Supernatural recap and gif blog I co-write/curate, [Shirtless Sammy](https://shirtlesssammy.tumblr.com/).


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